Android Two-Way Sync Works Poorly

📱 Desktop & mobile clients
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Hi everyone,

I’m currently running a Nextcloud Hub 31.0.9-0 instance from the Univention App Store on my UCS 5.2.4 as a Docker container.

I’m having major issues syncing the Nextcloud “Photos” share via the built-in two-way sync to my Android 16 device. My desktop client (Siduction Linux) syncs the share to my laptop within 15 minutes without any problems, which suggests that Nextcloud Hub is serving it correctly. On my phone (Google Pixel 8 Pro), I’ve enabled file sync in the Nextcloud account settings and activated the Photos share in the details.

There are about 8,000 files in the share totaling around 22GB, which shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve given the app all permissions on Android, set unrestricted battery usage, and allowed background execution—so no limitations there. I set this up yesterday morning.

This morning at 8 AM, I enabled the “Always on” display lock and kept the app in the foreground. The little blue sync circle keeps appearing on the Photos folder.

But when I check under Hamburger Menu → “On Device,” only 3 photos have been synced locally! How is that possible after such a long time?

I also tested syncing other shares like “ISOs” (which obviously makes less sense on a phone). That share has about 21GB but only a few files, and syncing works fine there.

Any ideas how I can fix this?

with best

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Am I really the only one having this problem?

At least I’ve managed to get a little further. I installed the current DEV version (APK) of Nextcloud, enabled synchronization again in the account settings, and also enabled it in the details of the Photos share. On its own, the app only syncs a few pictures, and it’s not clear which ones or why.

My photos in the Photos share are organized like this:

/Photos/shared/[year]/[month_number]_[month_name]

If I go into each year folder and manually select every month folder via the three dots → “Synchronize,” the photos do get synced. Of course, that’s not really practical.

Does anyone have a tip, or is the two-way sync feature simply not fully mature yet?